Our waitress Avril comes close, drawn to my serpentine finger, and I start grilling her on what comedy clubs in the area have anything happening this evening. She recommends one down the way that has a “Chocolate Sunday” Comedy session going on. Personally, I’ve never really understood black humor; Kings and Queens of comedy be damned. Maybe my inability to connect with ethnic degradation shows a significant lack of empathy on my part. God knows any number of my ex-girlfriends would subscribe to this theory; ravenous as winter wolves to find some flaw to expose. Maybe it just shows I’m above welfare checks and fried chicken. Collectively eschewing the chocolate concoction comedy option, we locate an Improv in the neighborhood and on my recommendation we set out for the show.
I use the ride over to introspect a little, chatting but not paying particular attention to the words crossing my lips. It’s natural for my hands to rest on the seat in front of me; absentminded fingers running through Amy’s hair and across her shoulders, making a playground out of her temple. I’m a little tired. I need to laugh. Arriving at the club we land a killer parking space, almost passing it up because it seems so conspicuous that anyone else should have taken it first.
Sona chimes,”We’re going to get a parking ticket.”
“We’re not going to get a parking ticket,” I assure her.
I’m guessing that’s exactly what others said. Everyone imagined a parking space ten feet from the entrance to be an oasis; that smiling, leggy blonde in the little black dress you never talk to. She must have a penis. Luckily, the parking space is transsexual-free.
Without much downtime till the jokes begin to fly, we place drink orders and relax waiting for the show to start. Amy’s hand dances across my thigh as her breath plays in my ear, both promising things I’m not likely to see tonight. The host is a black guy bearing a most profoundly Mexican name: Juan Gonzales Lupita Bonita Burrito Salsa con Queso Bueno Sanchez or something like that. He tries to make explaining his ancestry funny, but fails. The funniest line he has throughout the night is about his girlfriend’s fascination with Tantric sex and his replay of a 5 hour orgasm, flopping around the stage like an epileptic sprinter. Not that it is distinctive by any means; just the best thing he offers up for the evening.
The next several hours are suffused by some of the worst stand up ever to disgrace the halls of this celebrated establishment. Allow me to qualify that statement a little. In my mind the name Improv is synonymous with comedy. The greatest names in comedy have gotten their start in this club and most of them still frequent it. Improv Comedy Clubs are spread around the country in most major cities and are well attended for being so. I used to live in Tempe, AZ about two miles from the Improv bordering A.S.U. I was dating an enchanting girl with a great sense of humor and I had a great friend who worked the door. This equated to my attending almost every act that came through the place over a span of two years. I have seen standup. I have seen my date hypnotized and confessing to thoughts and acts that made me blush… and wish I had a tape recorder. I am a connoisseur of comedy, but by no means a snob. I appreciate the dick and fart jokes along with every other working stiff.
I’m topping off the beers we had earlier with vodka and red bull to jump start the show. For some reason I feel the need to insert myself into every standup act and each performer obliges seriatim. There is a ridiculously bad old man, Feldman, asking the crowd if they know what kind of last name he has. “JEWISH,” I holler in my outside voice. He peers out at me from under the rim of his ugly baseball cap as if I just stepped on his sand castle. I don’t care; he’s not doing his job. He makes a joke about his parents, Kurd and Turk: making him a Turd. I couldn’t agree more. After starting a trend for the night by asking my name as I interrupt him yet again, the Turd graciously bows out, leaving the stage to be polluted by the next retard a few moments later.
The subsequent woman is a hostess for the show ‘In Style’ according to Amy. Never having seen the show, I can’t disagree. The show is based in New York and she takes the stage with a swagger that would make the cast of Sex and The City proud. Even her clothes, with the avant-garde red swath and impressionist leavings beleaguering her fashionably tight shirt and the way her not-quite-blue jeans hug her indulgently healthy 30 something figure, speak volumes of east coast mouthiness. This is where her appeal ends. The vitriol that spews from this wench is unlike any female diatribe I have heard since my parents divorce proceedings. My loud mouth is the last thing that she wants to hear. After getting my name, she lays into me and any other male within earshot with an acrid fury born of Hellfire and PMS crackers. Within minutes, even the women in the audience are uncomfortable listening, and some of the men are downright hostile.
Motivated by the latest in a long string of warning slaps, pinches and glances from Amy, I leave to hit the restroom before I hit the comic. En route, I bump into the next act standing in the hallway going over his material. He’s taller than average, reaching perhaps 6’, but painfully thin so as to give the impression that he is even taller than he really is. He wears glasses inconspicuously so that I have to focus on them to make sure they actually exist. He is staring angularly across the walkway at the floor moving his mouth and slowly wiggling his fingers, appearing for all the world to be some misplaced old Merlin, intent on some magic beyond my comprehension. We chat for a minute and I’m glad to find out that he is as surprised by Queen Bitchnasty’s act as the rest of us.
By the time I make it back to my seat, the hallway Merlin is up on stage. Over the next 20 minutes or so I realize that what he was practicing in the hallway wasn’t really material as much as insults. This guy is confrontational. He has absolutely no jokes that aren’t a direct assault on the poor ass in the audience stupid enough to answer his questions. Enter: Me. After introducing me to the crowd yet again, this nasty old man and I trade insults and quips for the remainder of his time onstage. Not bad overall, certainly not as heinous as the Ice Queen, I just wish he had come in with some form of structured routine.
At this point in the night, I am drinking everything. Having followed my vodka with a Long Island of Death and drinking half of Amy’s second glass as well I settle into a nice oblivious buzz. I swear to god you could power a rocket with these things.
The next coherent thought I have is at McDonald’s. Somehow I managed to finish out the show and leave the club arriving at this Obese Greasy American Mecca of Cow Killing Goodness without remembering a single step in between. The stop off being motivated by Sona’s need to find a restroom, I decide I can quite comfortably stop paying attention again. Settling back into my haze, unaware of my surroundings while being led by Amy’s guiding hand, I’m content that she touches me this way; not the grip of a caretaker, but with the gentle enclosure of a lovers attendance. With Sona’s return we are greeted with an unsettling and far too vivid description of the innumerable health and safety violations she was forced to traverse in her quest to relieve her ailing bladder.
We pile into the car, and plunge back into the dirty sea of Los Angeles freeway travelers. Drunken ramblings from the back seat fill the car as my motormouth takes over and I start plagiarizing some of my favorite stand up comics. Completely oblivious to anyone’s preference of what I have to say and whether I should be saying it or not, the only interruption to my part stolen part improvised monologue is that of my overtaxed lungs attempting to wrest some oxygen from this pinched atmosphere held prisoner in the car, gulping it down in barely acknowledged batches before my mouth begins it’s marathon anew. Later, Amy confides in me that there was an actual conversation occurring in the car at the same time in the front seat; their exchange consisting of Sona wondering if I have an off switch and Amy’s assurances that I do not.
Making it back to the hotel, we all hunker down in varying positions. Sona climbs into the bed, worn out from chasing Amy and I around the city all day. I lay down on the couch with Amy on top of me. Her miniature frame is as comforting as she is warm. We whisper back and forth, Romeo and Juliet stealing time and kisses under the noses of watchful parents. Watching Family Guy reruns to the soundtrack of Sona’s complaints of how much she hates this show, I pass out, wearied; drunk from the fragrance of the woman atop me as much as the alcohol.
Almost ill and spinning, I wake up ice-water-fast some time later. Stumbling to the bathroom with my best Lee Marvin impression I flop down and let the cool tiles leech the fevered fire of Amy out of me until I can think straight again. With Sona asleep and her verbalized laundry list of complaints finally silenced, Amy and I try to steal what intimacy and comfort we can from what will be our last night together.
I’m in no shape to drive so Amy calls down to the front desk for a rollaway cot rather than pile all three of us into the snowdrift they call a bed. Loathe to awaken Sona, Amy and I go exploring; meandering through the gym, lobby, and varying elevators like Huck and Tom before returning to her room. We lie in the hallway outside the room for a long time; joking, touching, kissing, absorbing one another in desperation and waiting for the rollaway that is evidently not coming. Stumbling back in the room at long last, we find Sona awake and wondering what sort of trouble we are getting into. Assuring her that we didn’t kill anyone who didn’t richly deserve it, we start making arrangements for the night when the attendant shows up with the bed. True to form, he wears a suit and tie; opening the bed with the care of a man who is well paid to take care of lazy vacationers and rich incompetents. True to form, Sona infuses the process with invective, speeding him on his way fearing further lambaste. Watching him through half closed eyes as he leaves sans tip, sleep takes me almost immediately as Amy’s lips burn their heart shape into my forehead and the door clicks softly shut.
Daily Overview for June 20, 2005
Get on with it already! Get over your hesitance and take that big, daring leap.
Sometime during the course of the day, the tension becomes unbearable. Try for either a good laugh or a quick escape — or both. Plan to run, dance or vent with friends this evening.
Take those too narrow expectations and drop ‘em like they’re hot. Really, why go limiting yourself by setting down strictures about how something or someone ‘can’ or ‘can’t’ be? Let yourself have a little more freedom than that — and as a bonus, once you loosen up those requirements of yours, you’ll start having a lot more fun as well. Put this into practice as soon as possible and people will start remarking how much happier you seem.
The morning comes crashing through the opaque paper squares over the windows; unwelcome and far too early. We all get ready in that holiday style, despite having a full day and a late start, no one is moving with the alacrity that work and responsibility elicit. The girls are going on a WB tour and I have to make it back to my office at some point. Amy plays around with the camera snapping pictures of herself after a fashion of a pre-goodbye. We duck down to the lobby and Sona, doting mother that she is, insists on a couple pictures of Amy and me standing near a fountain making faces and being generally disruptive. We go out to the valet to retrieve their car for the Day’s adventuring. I drag Amy away on a walk to my car for goodbye and a weak attempt at closure of the weekend, assuring Sona that we’ll be eagerly awaiting her arrival once the car is brought round. These last few minutes are too short, but they are all that we have left so they have to be enough. Rushed words followed by awkward silence occupy our mouths and minds. Amy says she will be back within the week; that she wants to spend her time with me until school necessitates her return. Not knowing whether to respond with honest doubt or blind hopefulness I’m uncharacteristically quiet. We can’t ever say enough when we aren’t talking and the unspoken questions go unanswered all too often. Sona pulls up and Amy doesn’t notice for a long minute; surprised to see her car idling ahead of us. Invigorated with the promise of another day exploring the wilds of this concrete and plastic jungle, the girls embark on their next adventure. My keys dangling in the ignition, I watch them drive off and find myself lacking the volition to put the car into gear. As I turn away from the mirror displaying their vanishing license plate, I notice something I hadn’t before; a piece of paper on the window.
I got a parking ticket.
The weekend held so much emotion for me. Now, as she drives away I’m hit by a flood I didn’t know was dammed up; like the Little Dutch Boy inside had just given up and left. I’ve had my finger stuck in this dyke so long that I had forgotten what was behind it and I’ve no raft to cross this new river and no map; nothing telling me where I’m going or how to proceed. In all this sea of old and new, that boat is strangely absent. I leave the familiar confines of Jenna, my car, and walk back inside hoping I can get my bearings somehow in this opulent launching pad for businessmen and touring hopefuls. I’m struck by a thought that is so poignant and hopeful that I have to refuse to even entertain it. I have to push it out of my mind with one last glimpse at what it offers. And where this chronicle began, this empty room filled with hollow people, it ends.
